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| Tower at the DMZ visitors' center |
Although this teaching job in Korea has not
been the easiest assignment I've ever had in my life, it is not the
hardest, either. I've often chosen “hardship duty” for reasons that have not
yet become clear to me despite several rounds of psychotherapy interspersed with
other efforts to understand life and my place in it. Maybe it’s the challenge. I want to see what I can actually endure. Maybe I think that difficulty is good
for the soul - just as working out is good for the body. “No pain, no gain” and
all that sort of stuff. Perhaps I’m at some extreme end of the novelty-seeking
character type. I have done things such as taking my comprehensive exams at the
University of Michigan six weeks after giving birth, having taught in the medical histology course until the time of delivery. Or, I lived in a ghetto in
Philadelphia for two years while doing post-doctoral research with a tyrannical lab chief . I could
go on and on about the multiple stresses and strains I've placed upon my life. I don’t complain about things much because I realize that I've been
responsible for most of my own difficulties.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty I have
experienced here in Korea (NOT my doing, I believe) has been the long-distance
effort to straighten out my RV sale and loan pay-off. I drove all the way to
Tampa, Florida, to sell the RV to Lazy Days RV Center, one of the largest and
most reputable dealers in the country, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about
some snafu in the sale of the vehicle. And I also wanted to have credit toward
a new RV after my return. I had some last-minute regrets about selling that RV. It had been a practically perfect vehicle for me – and such a source of
pleasure and adventure! When I left the dealership in a rental car (just three
days before the August 8 departure date for Asia), I was assured that everything
was in order, that a check would be cut the next day, the loan from Nations
Bank would be paid off, and I didn’t need to worry about it any further.
I was tipped off that there might be a problem when I received a notice last October from Bank One (forwarded
from my home address by my daughter) that I could skip a payment in December by
sending in the attached card. I almost threw it away, wondering why Bank One
would be sending me something. Then I idly conjectured that Bank One might have
merged with a bank of one of my credit cards. Bank mergers were in the air around that time. But before I tossed it, I happened to notice a
figure of $388.00 in the upper left corner, and that amount looked unnervingly
familiar. I decided to keep the notice and follow up on it with a phone call.
Fortunately, phone cards available to the
military (and contractors) charge only 10c a minute for calls to the U.S. So I
made a phone call a few nights later – after midnight, in order to be calling
during U.S. business hours. The eastern U.S. is awake and doing business while I am normally sleeping here in Korea. I wasted a couple of dollars on the
audio “service” message - much of it on
hold listening to some ghastly, scratchy excuse for music. There are
some tunes that I will never again be able to listen to without stomach cramps
because I've had to hear them ad nauseum while I was holding for “service”
from some company. I eventually spoke
with a representative who told me that I owed them more than $15,000.00! I had paid way ahead on the loan, so I was not delinquent,
nor was my credit in jeopardy. But I was in shock.
Immediately, I called Lazy Days and talked
with the financial officer, Clyde Bailey, who had taken care of the transaction.
For some odd reason, I had brought his card with me overseas. He assured me that the
loan had been paid off and that the bank had sent title to the behicle, which
had been sold ten days after I brought it into the lot. He said he would follow
up on it with the bank and he would call me about the same time the next
morning (night to me). I felt reasonably assured and went to bed.
The next night, he didn’t call. I waited
up until almost 2:00am and then called him. He answered but said he had a
customer with him and would call me back in twenty minutes. He didn’t. I didn’t
sleep very well that night. The next morning (evening there), I called the
salesman I had dealt with, Alex Kozlowski, because I knew he usually worked
late in the evening. He was the one who had arranged the “trade-in” for my RV
against credit for the new one I will purchase after my return. He was very friendly
and said that the financial guy would call me back the next day, and, if
necessary, they’d get the lawyers on it! The next day, Bailey did call me and
said that the bank had made a mistake and would send me a letter of apology. He
said that Nations Bank was bought out by (or merged with) Bank One two weeks
after the transaction in question, and somehow the records had gotten mixed up.
So, I stopped worrying about it for a while.
About a month or so later (in December), I
thought I’d better check with the bank because I had not yet gotten a letter of
clarification or apology. The “service representative” said that I owed them
more than $15,000, and intertest was accruing. They had no record of my
previous contacts or of any communication with Lazy Days. By now, I was
becoming alarmed and called Clyde Bailey. He was annoyed that the matter had
not been resolved and made scarcely audible, disparaging comments to the
effect: “I talked with a supervisor, but of course, a supervisor wouldn’t keep
records of anything.” He said he would follow up on it.
For the next two weeks, I was very busy
with end-of-term activities – making up and grading exams, compiling and
turning in grades, etc. It had been a very busy term, and I was teaching three classes, including a laboratory, which takes a lot of time. I decided to put
off further efforts to deal with the matter until I returned to Charleston on
December 27. When I got there, my daughter was at home and we spent most of the first
four days (jet-lagged as I was) taking care of her wedding preparations. I finally
called as soon as possible after January 1, 2000 (the magic date); I believe
that January 3 was the first business day after that. Sure enough, the bank
still claimed that I owed them money.
So, for the remainder of my week in
Charleston, until January 8, I spent about an hour each day calling back and forth
between the bank and Lazy Days. I eventually connected with a research person
named Vonelle, who admitted that the problem had, indeed, been “researched”
once before in October – not by her, just some note in the records. But she
claimed that there had been no follow-up from Lazy Days, so it had been
dropped. The bank finally acknowledged that they probably wouldn’t have sent
the title without receiving a check, but they needed a copy of the cancelled
check so they could trace what had happened to the money. Later, I wished I had
asked Clyde Bailey to send me a copy of the front and back of the
cancelled check as well. As the week drew to a close, both Vonelle and Clyde
had each-others’ phone numbers, and I asked them to work it out, since clearly
the problem was in their records or transfers. I thought that I shouldn’t have
to be shepherding this thing, since I no longer had the RV and would soon leave
the country again. By the time I left the U.S., the matter still had not been
resolved, but I was assured that it was being tackled from both sides.
In early February, I called the bank,
again from Korea in the middle of the night, to verify that, in fact, the loan
had been paid off. I first tried calling Vonelle but got a voice message saying, “that number has been changed or is no longer in service.” In retrospect, it
might have been an area-code change, but it felt like another gratuitous
roadblock. So, I called the regular “service” number and asked about the
account. Instead of reassurance, I was treated like a dead-beat by the person
who checked my account because, by then, I was truly overdue, and "delinquent" in my payments. The “service person” I talked with had no record of
any inquiries or negotiations concerning the account. I bullied my way to a researcher by insisting that the “service person” check to see if the title
had been sent out. Finding that it had, he was willing to pass me up the line.
I wondered how someone not as persistent or tenacious would be able to handle this sort
of debacle. As it was, I was reaching the end of my patience and sanity about
the issue. I told the new “research person” (Lolita Smith?) that it was already
being researched by Vonelle, and I asked if she knew her. She said she
didn’t. I gave her Vonelle’s number. Again, rounds of talks ensued between me
and the bank and Lazy Days. This time I said it was time to get the lawyers
involved and that if it was not resolved soon, I would get my lawyer in the
states to try to track down who had skimmed the money. The researcher, Lolita, apparently dragged her feet and didn’t call Clyde Baily back when he
tried to get in touch with her.
Eventually, while trying to call Lolita
(not at her desk, “Can I help you?” for the third time by two different people,
Lattice and Angela), I did manage to make contact with an assistant, Sabine
Alice, who – after I had explained the situation again – declared, “This has
been going on too long.” I said, “Yes, indeed.” She promised to get to the bottom
of it right then and there. While I was on hold (eek, that awful music!),
she contacted Clyde Baily AND a person in records (Karen) at Lazy Days,
realized the complexity of the quagmire, and promised to call back in two days.
In fact, I did get calls in Korea from
all three within the next few days. From the three stories (the women were most
willing to talk), I pieced together a scenario of what may have happened.
Apparently, the first check had been sent to a Nations Bank in Florida rather
than the bank in North Carolina, which had handled my loan. Somehow, the check
simply disappeared – didn’t get cashed and didn’t get credited to my account.
Karen, the person in Records at Lazy Days, said that sort of thing happens all
the time. I was incredulous. She insisted, “The banks are so big these days,
they just can’t keep track of things.” There was a stamp on the check saying,
“Void after 90 days,” and by that time, there was no point in trying to
retrieve it. So, Clyde Baily had another check cut and sent to Vonelle. Sabine managed to contact Vonelle, who had, indeed, received the second check, She
had been slow in submitting it because she wanted to make sure she was sending
it to the correct place and didn’t want it to disappear down the same black
hole as had the previous one. They reassured me that the matter was practically
solved and promised that I would receive a letter of apology, sent to my Osan
address, when it was all cleared up.
On February 24, I still had no letter, so
I called the bank. The “service person” who answered (after the usual
interminable exposure to that grating music) said that the account had
been paid off!
In March, I received a form letter, postmarked March 1 - sent
to my home address in Charleston and forwarded by my daughter to Korea - congratulating me on my loan payoff.
No apologies.
*Several experiences from those two years spent
in Korea at the turn of the century are chronicled in "Korea, Are You at
Peace?" This one was not included in the book.
